


Hollow

by toyhto



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Lie Low At Lupin's, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-11 04:09:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15964391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toyhto/pseuds/toyhto
Summary: Sirius comes to lie low at Remus' place. But it's been fourteen years and years change people.





	Hollow

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this small story one night when I wanted to write something in which Remus is a mess. This is maybe about heartbreak and the hollowness of facing every morning without the person you still love but who's not there anymore. But maybe this is also about finding someone you thought you had lost a long time ago.
> 
>  
> 
> There's some mild violence in this story, also some vague non-graphic suicidal thoughts.

Now that he has Sirius, he’s not going to ask anything that’s not reasonable.  
  
Right?  
  
Because that would be insane. That would be cruel. And he’s not cruel. Maybe he’s not as nice as people seem to think he is, people who know him personally, that is. He’s not that nice. But he’s not _cruel_ , either. And if he wants to be, if he thinks for a second about pushing Sirius against the closed door, it’s just that he’s been alone for too long. And they’re just thoughts. He would never act on them.  
  
He’s going to be kind to Sirius. Yeah, that’s what he’s going to be. He’s going to make tea and give Sirius a blanket and put the man to the sofa. He’s going to ask about how Sirius has been. And he’s not going to ask about things he’s not supposed to. He’s _not._ He’s going to do this _right._  
  
Right?  
  
His hands are shaking a little. He hides them behind his back.  
  
“Remus?” Sirius says, biting his lower lip, his eyes going back and forth on Remus’ face. Sirius’ voice isn’t completely steady but not afraid, either. Sirius knows Remus is nice enough.  
  
Or, actually, Sirius knows Remus was nice enough fourteen years ago. Fourteen years ago, Remus never talked back. Remus never pushed Sirius against the wall and asked what the hell it was that was always lingering in Sirius’ eyes, was it doubt, was it _really_ , what fucking _right_ did Sirius have to doubt _Remus_ when he knew perfectly well that Remus would have done _anything, anything_ for a chance that Sirius might love him -  
  
But no.  
  
No, that’s not how it was. That’s how he thinks it was, and he’s been thinking about it for fourteen years.  
  
Anything changes in fourteen years.  
  
Memories change. And people.  
  
“I’ve changed,” he says aloud. It sounds utterly wrong. Sirius blinks.  
  
“Okay. How have you changed, Remus?”  
  
He wants to tell Sirius not to say his name. He wants to tell Sirius to say his name, constantly, endlessly, as if there’s nothing else in the whole fucking world. And he wants to open the door and tell Sirius to fuck off, and then pull the curtains in and make tea and sit on his sofa and forget that he got Sirius back and didn’t know what to do about it.  
  
God, he always was a coward.  
  
“You were away,” he says and breathes and swallows, breathes and swallows, “fourteen years.”  
  
“Trust me, I know.”  
  
“No.” Breathe, swallow. “No, you know what it was like for you. But have you thought for a second… have you thought for a fucking second about how I… I lost everything at once and I thought you had…”  
  
“Remus,” Sirius says in a voice meant to calm down a spooked animal, “it wasn’t my fault.”  
  
“Of course it wasn’t your fault. I _know_ that. And it wasn’t my fault either. But have you thought that maybe I –“  
  
He’s quite sure Sirius hasn’t.  
  
“That I’m not the same?”  
  
Sirius frowns.  
  
“That maybe I don’t want you here?”  
  
But Sirius isn’t the same, either. The old Sirius never would’ve let Remus see the fear. It’s as if something’s missing from Sirius’ face. A mask, perhaps. It’s all there, bare and visible. “So,” Sirius says impossibly slowly, “you don’t –“  
  
“Sit down on the sofa,” Remus says and turns, “and stay there. I’ll make you tea.”  
  
  
**  
  
  
He’s been thinking about whether it would’ve been easier if Sirius hadn’t kissed him. He’s had time to think and that’s what he’s been thinking about. Because surely it’s crueller to pretend to love someone and then leave them than not bother pretending at all. And it _was_ Sirius who kissed him first. After almost fourteen years, he’s still almost sure of that. They were both drunk and afraid but it was Sirius who leaned to him on their sofa in their flat in the middle of the night in the early 1980 and kissed him sloppily on the mouth.  
  
For some time he wondered how the hell it’s possible that people get over things, like, when someone who they thought loves them just leaves them. After a few years he gave up. No one gets over anything. It just grows into their bones. It becomes a part of who they are. It doesn’t stop hurting but the way it hurts becomes so familiar it feels almost gentle.  
  
Almost.  
  
Because there’ve been nights when he thought he couldn’t stand it anymore, really couldn’t, that the absence of someone he thought had loved him was heavier than everything else together. And sometimes he’s wondered with blunt fear where the thin line between wanting to die and really wanting to die actually lies. Maybe it’s the kind of a line you can’t see until you step over it.  
  
And there’ve been nights when he wanted someone to touch him so badly it didn’t matter that it was someone with no name and no face and that he was drunk and high and didn’t remember the half of it in the morning.  
  
“So, how have you been?” says Sirius, sitting in his sofa when the light outside the windows is already growing darker above the moors.  
  
“How have I been,” Remus says in a hoarse voice.  
  
Sirius nods.  
  
“Fine,” Remus says.  
  
“Fine?” Sirius says and blinks.  
  
“The weather,” Remus says, “the weather has been quite nice.”  
  
“The tea is great,” Sirius says.  
  
“Thank you,” Remus says.  
  
“You’re welcome,” Sirius says. “I like this place.”  
  
“Thank you,” Remus says.  
  
“Remus?”  
  
He swallows.  
  
“Remus,” Sirius says in a small voice, “Remus, tell me you want me here.”  
  
Remus looks at the window. He should close the curtains. He stands up and walks to the window.  
  
“Because this is the only… you are the only… you’re everything that I have left.”  
  
“Harry’s alive,” Remus says in a steady voice and closes the curtains.  
  
“Harry was a baby. What I remember is a baby.”  
  
“Well, you missed fourteen years.” He makes sure the curtains are really closed.  
  
“ _Remus_.”  
  
“And I kept telling myself that you never gave a shit about me. Over and over again. For fourteen years.”  
  
“Not fourteen –“  
  
“Thirteen. Twelve and a half. Until that day in the Shrieking Shack.”  
  
“You’re angry at me.”  
  
“No,” he says and takes a deep breath, “ _no_ , you were a victim.”  
  
“How can I fix it? Just tell me. Just tell me how I can fix it.”  
  
No. He’s not going to do that. Because if he begins, he’s not going to know when to stop. It’s been too long and he doesn’t know where the lines go.  
  
“Remus –“  
  
He can hear Sirius standing up and walking to him, slowly steps, as if Sirius is afraid of him, which is fucking right, Sirius should be afraid of him -  
  
No. _No._ He’s not doing this.  
  
“It’s just,” he says in the lightest voice he can manage, “you stopped looking me in the eyes.”  
  
“I didn’t –“  
  
“Don’t fucking lie to me.”  
  
Sirius stays quiet.  
  
“I thought you’d betrayed us,” Remus says to the grey curtains that smell of dust, “when Dumbledore told me so. When everyone told me so. But you thought I lied to you and you came up with it by yourself. Just by yourself. You stopped trusting me when I was _right there._ ”  
  
“It was… I wasn’t…”  
  
“And then you stopped looking me in the eyes,” he says and turns. Sirius flinches but doesn’t move away. Sirius smells terrible, of sweat and dirt. Also, Sirius looks him in the eyes. “You can’t fix this,” he says and grabs the front of Sirius’ shirt. There’s mud in it. “Take this off.”  
  
_No._ He wasn’t going to ask -  
  
But Sirius is already pulling his shirt off, not bothering to unbutton it first. Maybe Sirius doesn’t remember how.  
  
“Stop.”  
  
Sirius stops.  
  
“Go on.”  
  
Sirius goes on.  
  
“Bathroom,” Remus says. His voice sounds hollow. He feels hollow. It’s been all carved out of him, all the niceness and kindness and tenderness he thought he had. Sirius walks to the bathroom, glancing over his shoulder as if to see if Remus is watching. He is. He follows, not close enough to touch Sirius but not far enough that it wouldn’t be easy to cross the distance and slam Sirius against the wall. Not that he’s thinking about it. Because he’s not. He’s _not._ He sets the charm to fill the bathtub with hot water and then watches from the doorway as Sirius takes off the rest of his clothes and steps into the water. Sirius is thin now, in a kind of unpleasant way, the wrong bones pointing out underneath his skin. Everything is gone, everything Sirius was so smug about. The looks. The smile. The confidence.  
  
Remus fell for that smug bastard perhaps in 1976 and never got over it. Yeah, that’s how it went. It grew into his bones. And he still misses the Sirius he lost with an ache that’s never going to heal.  
  
“Remus,” Sirius says, glancing at him from the bathtub. It’s large enough that the water almost reaches Sirius’ shoulders now that he lies back.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Can you…” Sirius says and takes a shaggy breath. “Would you… I don’t know _what_ …”  
  
“What do you mean, you don’t know what?”  
  
Sirius just stares at him.  
  
He has all his clothes on, Sirius is naked. He remembers what words mean, Sirius doesn’t. He’s had sex during the past fourteen years, Sirius hasn’t. Probably. Perhaps Sirius has found someone now, on the run. It’s possible.  
  
“Get out,” Remus says, “and get to the bed.”  
  
It’s unthinkable, Sirius with someone else. Sirius was supposed to be dead to him. He can’t take this new Sirius, alive and strange and still oddly familiar and so close to Remus and also so easy to tell to do things.  
  
Anything to fix the thing that can’t be fixed.  
  
“Which bed?”  
  
“My bed,” he says, “you’re sleeping in my bed. Or don’t you want to?”  
  
Sirius opens his mouth and then closes it, nods and follows Remus, naked, dripping water onto the floor.  
  
“You can’t know what it was like,” Remus says, watching the fragile naked man, “for me. You _can’t_. You can’t have a fucking clue. You can’t know how fucking much I missed you.”  
  
“Remus,” Sirius says and breaths in, all of him wavering a little. He’s almost at the bed now but doesn’t sit down. Or lie down.  
  
“Because I thought you loved me.”  
  
Sirius faces him, staring at him until he _has_ to do something. He takes a step closer. He should get the towel from the bathroom, or cast a quick drying charm on Sirius. He should apologise and get Sirius some clean underwear.  
  
He raises his hand and pushes his fingers into Sirius’ hair. His hand is shaking. Sirius leans against his hand, baring his throat.  
  
“You were always missing,” he says, slowly, because he shouldn’t. “Every morning I woke up, you weren’t there. There was an empty space. For fourteen years. In _everything_. When I fucked someone, they weren’t you.”  
  
Sirius still has the same eyelashes, though. Long and black. Remus pulls Sirius’ head back a little. Isn’t it odd that Sirius’ eyelashes haven’t changed?  
  
“I fucking woke up every morning,” he says, “and you weren’t there.”  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
“You can’t be _sorry_. It wasn’t your fault.”  
  
“I know,” Sirius says and then closes his eyes when Remus tightens the grip of his hair.  
  
“Does this hurt?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Doesn’t it?”  
  
“Yeah,” Sirius says, blinking, watching him, “yeah, it does, Remus. It hurts.”  
  
“I don’t want to hurt you.”  
  
“Yeah, you do,” Sirius says, quietly enough that it’s hard to hear. “Just do it.”  
  
“Do what?”  
  
“Anything.”  
  
“Have you fucked someone? After you got out?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“I can’t just… I couldn’t…”  
  
“You can.”  
  
He lets go of Sirius’ hair. Sirius sits down on the edge of the bed, taking deep breaths. He looks like he’s cold, and tired, and hurting.  
  
Remus sits down beside Sirius. His hands are shaking. He tries to hold them steady but can’t.  
  
“Sorry,” he says. He’s probably going to be sick. He touched Sirius for the first time in fourteen years, almost, almost because the hug in the Shrieking Shack doesn’t count, they weren’t _alone_ then, he touched Sirius for the first time and it was like that. He should leave now. He should let Sirius be.  
  
“You could just hit me,” Sirius says, “or whatever it is that you want.”  
  
“ _Fuck_. I…”  
  
“Or fuck me.”  
  
“Sirius.” But Sirius’ name tastes odd in his mouth. He closes his eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have –“  
  
“You can never know what it was like,” Sirius says, “for me. In that place. But now I’m here and you’re still alive. And I don’t care what it is that you do to me as long as you’re with me.”  
  
“I’m not a nice person.”  
  
“I _know_.”  
  
“You don’t. I’ve been so sad, and so lonely, it’s been like it’s crept inside of me, like it’s been eating me inside. I don’t think I can…” But he can’t say it.  
  
“What?”  
  
He glances at Sirius.  
  
“Love me? Then push me against the fucking bed and fuck me. As long as you look me in the eyes.”  
  
“It’s not that I don’t –“  
  
“Love me,” Sirius says, “yeah, I know. Me, too.”  
  
“Don’t say that.”  
  
“I love you,” Sirius says and grabs Remus’ shoulders, squeezing tight enough to hurt a little. It’s good. It makes it easier to look at Sirius who’s actually there, _finally_. “I fucking love you. So hit me.”  
  
He slaps Sirius on the face.  
  
Not hard, though.  
  
Sirius looks surprised.  
  
He slaps Sirius again. Sirius’ eyes are still the same, only now they’re fixed on him, now Sirius is looking him in the eyes. And he keeps looking back. And he slaps Sirius once more, and once more, and Sirius’ laughs in a breathless voice and always fixes his eyes back onto him. And finally, when he’s hollow and sad and kind of crying a little, he pushes his fingers into Sirius’ hair again, slowly, kindly, traces Sirius’ jaw with his thumb, places his fingertips on every new line on Sirius’ face, and, in the end, he thinks he’s going to kiss Sirius. Right now.


End file.
